1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an empty plastic container crusher.
There are many different types of plastic containers that we use in our everyday lives, which when finished with are usually thrown away or kept for recycling. Although used plastic containers such as bottles are a small contributor to the domestic waste stream in terms of weight, they cover a large surface area, because of them being so bulky and full of air. Plastic containers use up much unwanted space in our refuse and recycling bins or banks. For a plastic container to arrive at its smallest crushed compact form, it should be crushed from the top to the bottom.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Mechanical crushers for aluminium cans are sometimes provided in recycling skips, but plastic containers are more usually crushed using hands and feet which involves compressing them sideways so that they still take up unnecessary space. It is difficult to crush a tall plastic container from top to bottom by hand or foot, since it tends to collapse to one side, so that it cannot become as small and compact as it could be. Another advantage of crushing a container from top to bottom is that more and more companies are now putting a special code on the base of the container to make sorting easier. Using this method would keep the code intact and readable.
Landfill sites are a common way of disposing of refuse, but finding land is an increasing problem and bulky plastic containers take up a relatively large percentage of domestic waste. Ideally all used plastic containers should be recycled, but the idea of saving bulky clutter at home, tends to put the consumer off.